I had always thought Spanish was supposed to be *fairly* easy to learn?

[NewJeffCT]

when we were in Italy a few months back, we took a train from Milan to Nice. We shared our little compartment with an 83 or 84 year old Italian woman and her daughter. We managed to have a pretty good talk with the two of them, but the old woman had taken up studying languages the past 5 years or so. In addition to Italian and English, she also spoke German and French. She then said that next year, she was going to tackle her biggest challenge, and that was learning Spanish. I didn't want to question her there out of respect and possibly misunderstanding her English, but I had always thought Spanish was supposed to be pretty easy to learn, especially since she already knew Italian & French? Am I wrong?

[qb]

1. Perhaps the similarity of Spanish & Italian is the difficulty...

Italian, German, French & English have very distinct sounds and probably easier to keep them separate in your mind.

[LeftinOH]

2. If she knows Italian & French (especially Italian) -then she is practically there

already. I know Spanish (but not Italian) -and can *almost* follow along with Italian.

[Enrique]

3. I have a Brazilian friend who struggles with Spanish

and says English is much easier. Like you, I don't get it. :shrug:

[Maccagirl]

4. I picked up French pretty easily in high school

and I had a terrible teacher-but Spanish has been surprisingly hard and I can't explain it.

[NV Whino]

5. Spanish and Italian are so close it should be easy to go from one to the other

Portuguese, on the other hand, is totally weird and even with a Spanish or Italian background would be hard to pick up. Better to come at that one cold.

[MrScorpio]

6. R's pronounced like h's and d's pronounced like soft g's

Portuguese would murder me.

[old mark]

7. I had 2 full years of Latin in (catholic) high school, and when I took Spanish

when I returned to college in my late 40's, I found it very easy - I even remember a lot of it and enjoy trying to read it.
I can't understand why anyone would find English easy compared to Spanish - or even Latin.

mark

[JSK]

8. I hate the fact that Spanish has two verbs "to be" n/t

[NV Whino]

9. yeah, that's a tough one

If you want to say, "She is my friend," you have to decide if it's a temporary relationship or a permanent one. :rofl: